Illegal drugs showing up as cartoon-shaped pills

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Drugs shaped like Snoopy, Transformers and President Barack Obama's head have recently shown up on the streets, adding to a trend that worries police and health experts.

Colorful Ecstasy pills started showing up last year shaped as Homer and Bart Simpson, Ninja Turtles and other characters. As more of the pills that look like vitamins or candy go out locally and nationwide, they put children at great risk, police and experts said.
"Someone leaves this around ... kids pick them up and boom," said H. Westley Clark, director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.

The result could be seizures, a spiked blood pressure and heart rate and even death, he said.
In May, Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Nevada sent out warnings that the cartoon pills were in Las Vegas. Dealers there call Ecstasy "Thizz" and market it to minors, the DEA warned. They also said they had found pills shaped like Ninja Turtles, Transformers and other "Simpsons" characters.
Also in May, police in Utah busted a drug ring and found 500 Ecstasy pills stamped in the shape of Obama and Snoopy.
The cartoon character marketing is a ploy by predators to promote a dangerous drug as light fun in order to sell to more teens and young adults, Clark said. The irresponsible marketers also use false advertising, police said, because the tablets often contain no Ecstasy at all but instead a powerful mix of other drugs.
For more than a year, about half the so-called Ecstasy pills tested at labs in Kansas City and Johnson County, Kan., have turned out not to be Ecstasy. They were a combination of other drugs once used to treat stomach parasites that have effects and dangers similar to Ecstasy.
The shaped tablets are more likely to be fake than flat tablets sold as Ecstasy, drug experts said.
Ecstasy tends to crumble and does not press as easily as the piperazine family of drugs once used to kill stomach worms, said Zachary Skinner, a forensic chemist at the Kansas City Police Department crime lab.
It takes a combination of two variations of piperazine to get the Ecstasy effects, he said. This combination surfaced in New Zealand in the 1990s as "legalX," but many countries have since criminalized BZP, one of the variations.
In the United States, BZP is illegal under federal law and Missouri law, but it is legal in Kansas.
Balerie Kamb, a supervisor at the Johnson County crime lab, said that should be changed. Her lab started occasionally finding BZP two years ago, but it skyrocketed, she said. "We're surprised now when we get (Ecstasy) instead of BZP."
Other state crime labs are starting to report the same. In Ohio, labs first found the worm-killer drugs in January 2008 and within a year they were in more than half the pills tested, according to an Ohio report.
The report also said some users call Ecstasy "a surprise high," because they never know what they're getting or how strong it will be. Drugs like caffeine, methamphetamine and even heroin also sometimes get into the pills.
Forget exact dosages and quality control, Clark said, and sloppy manufacturing also can make people sick from bacteria or chemical contamination.
In Australia, more than 60 people have died in the past eight years from Ecstasy or another drug substituted for it, according to media reports.
In the United States, there are no comprehensive numbers on deaths, but reports from cities in eight states found it was involved in 50 deaths in 2005, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Kamb said simply, "You're playing Russian roulette with these pills."
Ecstasy has spread to colleges, high schools and the rap scene since it became popular with rave gatherings in the 1990s.
Usage has been on the decline nationally: Americans older than 12 who said they had taken it in the past year dropped from a high of 3.2 million in 2002 to just over 2 million in 2007.

The worst part is that one should realize, probably 90% or more of the people who read this article will believe most of it. I guarantee you, if I showed this article to 50 people in my city's downtown, the majority would be horrified and livid. Very few would see it as propaganda.

hahahahha! swim only had to read the first sentance for a GREAT laugh! "the kid takes what they think are vitamins and BAM!" haha! not gonna lie, swim would have a gas if a kid accidentally dosed himself on E. He'd make sure the kid stays safe and feel bad, but it would create a good laugh. And what kind of user just leaves their pills lying around on the counter? or even in a bottle out in the open? This is just another story for shock....

Like all things, there is a risk element. If i fall out of bed i stand some chance of damage. I think what worries them more is not the drugs, it's the drug users. They see through the really not very good lies. Thats the dangerous part for them.

They look like strawberry Pop Rocks.
They even could smell like strawberry Pop Rocks.
But strawberry Pop Rocks, they aren't.

With Halloween approaching, Mad Mothers Against Methamphetamine are taking to the streets, warning parents of children who trick-or-treat to not accept pink Pop Rocks.

"Parents, there is a very scary thing going on in the schools and in our community you need to be aware of," begins a MMAM flier. The message warns "all parents - especially the younger ones - for this is the kids they are targeting with the strawberry meth to get them addicted to meth younger."

There have been no documented instances of dealers pushing pink flavored or scented meth on kids in Twin Falls, nor in Idaho, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

One reference from the Web site snopes.com cites an arrest in North Carolina in which a county sheriff noted "a pink ice-looking substance" that "smells like strawberries."

Pink-colored meth, however, did turn up in June when police seized close to two pounds of it in a battery box along with a white crystal substance. Police confirmed with the state lab that the pink substance contained methamphetamine. Fearing the substance could be toxic, police did not risk checking whether it emitted a strawberry scent or tasted sweet, said Twin Falls Police Sgt. Mark Marvin.

There was no evidence that the suspect, Jorge Naverrete-Sanchez of Twin Falls, intended to distribute it to kids.

"It's more speculative than real at this point," said Bernie Hobson, a temporary spokesman for the DEA, on whether Idaho children are being targeted by pink meth. He went on to say the threat of that sort of packaging makes sense.

Pam Green, who heads the local chapter of MMAM, said she has argued that dealers would give meth away to children to get a new client.

It's not a far stretch to Green, who says "we've seen kids as young as nine years old on it."

MMAM's flyers are being spread around town as MMAM's president, Dr. Mary Holley, is schedule to spend a week in the Magic Valley, speaking to kids, faith-based crowds, professionals and the general public about the toxic drug.

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What would parents do without all of the 'Mad Mothers' out there protecting our children for us and making mountains out of ant hills???

Swim lives in kansas city.....He has purchased transformer pills, snoopy pills, bart simpson heads, and green apples.....all of these pills are BZP and TFMPP. Go to bluelight or pillreports and look for yourself. These are not real ecstasy pills. Swim has consumed them on several occasions. They are AWFUL pills. STAY AWAY, unless swiy likes BZP

Also, Heroin and morphine are the EXACT SAME when taken orally. Heroin (diacetyl-morphine) crosses the blood brain barrier much faster than morphine when injected intravenously. So at "worst", they'd put in morphine.

People will believe what they want to believe. Swims friends swear that they have "coke based pills, or heroin based pills". Swim tells them every time that they are stupid, but they wont believe him. Whenever someone tells you that, just laugh and nod. lol

rhcpeppers1234 added 2 Minutes and 23 Seconds later...

also, "In the United States, BZP is illegal under federal law and Missouri law, but it is legal in Kansas."

THATS HORSE SHIT, BZP is NOT legal in ks (swim lives there). If something is illegal under federal law, how is it then legal in certain states???